Canada - Barry, 75, & Honey Sherman, 70, found dead, Toronto, 15 Dec 2017 #1

[foxe]

My phone just froze.....sorry.....That information kinda took me aback. I was startled. It doesn't make sense. Are there alarms in these homes? Obviously there must be some pretty professional "cat burglars." Back to the Sherman, I wonder......if perhaps it could have been sheer coincidence. A burlap getting caught. And knowing Mr Sherman's "temper" an altercation could have taken place. But to be honest, I think for business people at his level, there would have to be some pros schooled in how to commit The Perfect Murder (s). Chilling either way.

 

[foxe]

I am new to this site. And don't know how to cue the "thank you" icons. So thank you for the happy welcome!! (Under the circumstances).

 

[TTF14]

Perhaps I misread it or didn't understand it correctly. What I gathered from the article was that Mr. Sherman paid the four boys of the original investing partner, who was deceased, when he sold the company that their father and Mr. Sherman were invested in together. So that ended the investment the boys had in the original company from their father. Is that correct? Mr. Sherman bought them out.

However, as the years passed and Mr. Sherman became more successful and richer, the boys decided they were owed a portion of this success too. Is this correct?

Unless Mr. Sherman had not divided the original money from the first sale with the boy's father correctly and it could be proven years later, why would these guys think they had a claim on the business and money Mr. Sherman developed through the years?

It appeared that Mr. Sherman was very giving to these boys in their adulthood and saw to it that they were set up with lovely homes. He also tried to help two in rehabs to get their life straightened out.

Why would they come back later and sue him? What did I miss?

This is the way I have interpreted it as well, and it doesn't seem to me like Mr. Sherman was a big fat jerk to these kids, but perhaps they were entitled!

 

[Kilr0y]

Snipped for focus and BBM

This is simply not true. People choose all kinds of places; they are not thinking rationally at that point.

In car in airport parking lot. http://www.ajc.com/news/national/ma...arking-lot-for-months/gchianplMZHzOq3QqffhrK/

Wal-Mart parking lot. http://www.whio.com/news/national/w...had-been-there-months/ILoM6srqn19HVNVLi6kPmL/

Some weird inner room in a downtown parking garage. http://www.foxnews.com/us/2012/02/2...t-found-inside-parking-garage-police-say.html

Boiler room of an abandoned building. https://m.huffpost.com/us/entry/540407

Basement of home, strangulation. http://www.insideedition.com/body-m...r-husband-confesses-murder-suicide-note-37548

An attic. https://nypost.com/2016/12/02/woman-finds-mummified-remains-of-grandson-in-attic/

Inside the trunk of his car. http://katu.com/news/local/missing-george-fox-students-body-found-suicide-suspected

Another trunk. http://fox4kc.com/2014/04/04/police-body-found-inside-of-car-trunk/

And another. http://www.spokesman.com/stories/2017/aug/31/fbi-rules-montana-woman-found-shot-dead-in-trunk-i/

Jumping off an overpass. https://nypost.com/2017/10/29/driver-killed-after-12-year-old-attempting-suicide-jumps-on-her-car/

Inside stall in public bathroom. http://www.jamda.com/article/S0379-0738(04)00054-4/abstract

Car crash suicides. https://www.thedailybeast.com/the-brutal-truth-about-car-crash-suicide

And there are a lot of people who jump off various buildings and bridges, kill themselves in anonymous hotel rooms, jump in front of trains, etc.

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Also in the case of people who jump off Bridges you would be shocked to find that they usually go to a bridge that is in a place that they have known their entire lives and makes them feel very calm and content. That is why they choose that particular Bridge.

My thinking on this case is purely statistical. There is one explanation involving murder suicide and that explanation itself would be very rare statistically, meaning a double hanging in a basement by a billionaire. Then there is a huge collection of other explanations, equally long shots statistically, but they all involve double murder. So you have to take the fact that only 1 of the ping pong balls here gives an explanation of murder-suicide and the other 100,000 give an explanation of double murder. They are all statistically 1 in 100,000 long shots but COMBINED the double murder explanations far outnumber the one single murder-suicide explanation.

As for why the murder-suicide explanation is statistically a long shot, I defy you to find another case of murder-suicide where both parties were found hanging in a basement or even just where both parties were found hanging at all. It certainly seems like the posing in the basement was intended to shock and would not be something that Barry Sherman would have chosen if he did in fact wants to commit murder suicide. And that does not even get into the question of whether he could have dragged her down there and self or why he did not choose pipes or railings closer to where the actual murder took place.

 

[foxe]

Why would the very cousins sue the one guy - Barry Sherman - who took care of them all these years? I read somewhere Barry was getting pretty fed up with the lawsuits and started calling in loans he made to them, or home mortgages and this was really posing a threat to the cousins' lifestyles. The cousins felt they were owed a piece of the bigger pie - the billion dollar pie. And that's just 10% of what the public probably knows from legal proceedings. I was a former court transcriptionist and you'd be amazed at what family members will squabble over when money is involved. Families shattered. Grudges carried for years.

 

[Tillicum]

"The noose was tightening" seems like a very poor choice of words.

I agree but it appears they were quoting an LE source. So we can blame LE for it.

 

[gdalton]

A view of the Sherman home circa 2015.
http://nationalpost.com/news/politi...p-over-liberals-support-for-iran-nuclear-deal

Doesn't match the RE listing. Probably the neighbours in the background.

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[LaborDayRN]

Also in the case of people who jump off Bridges you would be shocked to find that they usually go to a bridge that is in a place that they have known their entire lives and makes them feel very calm and content. That is why they choose that particular Bridge.

My thinking on this case is purely statistical. There is one explanation involving murder suicide and that explanation itself would be very rare statistically, meaning a double hanging in a basement by a billionaire. Then there is a huge collection of other explanations, equally long shots statistically, but they all involve double murder. So you have to take the fact that only 1 of the ping pong balls here gives an explanation of murder-suicide and the other 100,000 give an explanation of double murder. They are all statistically 1 in 100,000 long shots but COMBINED the double murder explanations far outnumber the one single murder-suicide explanation.

As for why the murder-suicide explanation is statistically a long shot, I defy you to find another case of murder-suicide where both parties were found hanging in a basement or even just where both parties were found hanging at all. It certainly seems like the posing in the basement was intended to shock and would not be something that Barry Sherman would have chosen if he did in fact wants to commit murder suicide. And that does not even get into the question of whether he could have dragged her down there and self or why he did not choose pipes or railings closer to where the actual murder took place.

As I stated previously my gut tells me this was homicide, but just for the sake of discussion:

Police have called the hangings of Gina Ilene Summers, 46, and her son Jude a murder-suicide. It appears to follow a lengthy custody dispute between Summers and the boy’s father, 51-year-old Jeff Sandberg, of Minnetonka.

http://www.startribune.com/orono-mo...uicide-note-lamenting-custody-rift/442932393/

 

[Pamela_Brewer]

None of these examples have a second individual who was murdered and then hanged next to the murderer. There is currently too much acceptance of the concept of murder-suicide in this case. The crime scene simply does not reflect a typical murder suicide. If this is a murder-suicide, then it is a 1 in a 100,000 kind of murder-suicide. If we are dealing with those kind of odds, then it also puts all kinds of other possibilities on the table. I would say that the odds of a very sophisticated assassin are far lower than 1 in 100,000. I did not say that ALL suicides happen in someone's comfort zone, but there is a tendency the vast majority of suicides would be done in a place you are comfortable. This basement lap pool is clearly not that kind of place. Many of your example show cars and people are very comfortable in their cars. You have a few in a basement, but obviously none of them are murder- suicides with BOTH victims hang in the basement. Face it, this would have to be the most bizarre and unlikely murder-suicides ever seen. The basement in this billionaires house was very unremarkable and not a place they would have been spending time. The basements in many of your suicide examples could have been recreational rooms where the suicide person was very comfortable. If this incident was a murder-suicide it was a long shot very fluky murder-suicide. Given this fact, when you start comparing the odds of a very bizarre and long shot murder-suicide to the COMBINED odds of ALL other possibilities, it becomes clear that one of the other possibilities is far more likely than that this is one of the weirdest murder-suicides of all time. If he killed her upstairs why did he not hang himself from any of the pipes door knobs or railings that existed upstairs? Why would he dragged her all the way down to the basement and then choose to string her up next to him in a very bizarre location? This is very obviously a staging meant to shock and be grizzly. Murder-suicide is definitely one of the possibilities, but it is a long shot among many long shots and the vast majority of The Longshot explanations involve double murder and there is only a single Long shot explanation that is explained by murder-suicide.

Does anyone else feel like the scene was staged?
No other details that I have seen...
Was the wife's purse there? The husband's wallet?
Their wedding rings or any other jewelry ? Watches ?

Nothing being taken would support a murder-suicide I guess.

The wife being killed and moved makes no sense.
Other than to stage the scene to look like a double suicide or murder- suicide or to humiliate them.

-Pharmaceutical company
Wouldn't an overdose be a more widely accepted choice for this couple ?

I'm not inclined to believe a terminal condition of one would result in both taking their lives or one killing the other and commiting suicide. (In this case)

Someone needed them both gone for a reason.

I won't start any religious debate here. However, I am curious about their religous beliefs regarding this!
(I have heard of burial not being allowed in certain areas cemeteries if suicide.)

So the couple possibly couldn't rest in peace together ?
Also, first born grandchild.
Any religious customs regarding inheritance ?
IOW would the parent of that child be at an advantage or receive more than a childless sibling ?
Also, it's Chanukah!

Which reminds me of the "Yom Kippur" killings in 1985.

http://articles.latimes.com/1990-03-08/local/me-3051_1_ninja-murders


Message me if you can educate me further. I would appreciate your input !




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[kay74]

Perhaps I misread it or didn't understand it correctly. What I gathered from the article was that Mr. Sherman paid the four boys of the original investing partner, who was deceased, when he sold the company that their father and Mr. Sherman were invested in together. So that ended the investment the boys had in the original company from their father. Is that correct? Mr. Sherman bought them out.

However, as the years passed and Mr. Sherman became more successful and richer, the boys decided they were owed a portion of this success too. Is this correct?

Unless Mr. Sherman had not divided the original money from the first sale with the boy's father correctly and it could be proven years later, why would these guys think they had a claim on the business and money Mr. Sherman developed through the years?

It appeared that Mr. Sherman was very giving to these boys in their adulthood and saw to it that they were set up with lovely homes. He also tried to help two in rehabs to get their life straightened out.

Why would they come back later and sue him? What did I miss?

This bothers me. A druggie gets desperate for money. He could have gone to their home to beg them for money and got into an angry argument with Mr. Sherman. JMO. I do not think this is murder/suicide. They were leaving for Florida on Monday and have a new grandchild coming along. Nice life.

 

[kay74]

I guess the most telling thing will be if there is any trauma to their bodies or if anything was taken. Wish they would give out that info.

 

[chissus]

I think they were killed by someone listed in their will. Or maybe the killing isn't over.

 

[Tillicum]

This bothers me. A druggie gets desperate for money. He could have gone to their home to beg them for money and got into an angry argument with Mr. Sherman. JMO. I do not think this is murder/suicide. They were leaving for Florida on Monday and have a new grandchild coming along. Nice life.

Honey was leaving on Monday but Barry wasn't going until the following week.

 

[Kaley Smith]

I totally agree with Kilr0y : "This was a scene staged to make them look bad and staged to be shocking which is the signature of some kind of hit."

I look at cases from a psychological point of view. I see no evidence pointing to Mr. Sherman being someone with a mental illness or having the mindset or character to kill his wife and dishonour himself, his children and his legacy in this manner. Someone hated this man and was jealous of what he had, felt wronged by him, and wanted to see him suffer and be humiliated.

 

[Sphinx]

Dear Kilr0y,

My working theory at the moment is along the same lines of what you have been saying.

They could have both been murdered by someone who hated them so much that they chose to "display" the bodies in a grotesque and humiliating way.

I keep thinking that if he killed his wife upstairs in another room, why not just take pills and lie down beside her?

Why work towards displaying their bodies in a dreadful and humilitating way? Especially when it could have been one of their children who found them?

I agree with Lilibet that we don't know enough yet. Hopefully the police statement after they receive the results of the post mortem examinations will divulge how they plan to treat their investigation.

I just feel that murder is more likely than a suicide-murder, but I do know that often when men commit suicide they do it in a place where it is easy to clean up any mess afterwards -- strange as that may seem. I have known of 2 personally in my area -- one shot himself in the tiled shower, and another hung himself in the garage. I know this is bizarre, but a pool area that is all tiled would be easier to clean up than say on an expensive oriental rug. IMO

 

[dotr]

In the unsolved murders in Florida of a high profile Toronto couple, it was not realized at the time, or the information not yet released, indicating that Ms Weiss's unique engagement ring was missing.
It has not been revealed how they were murdered, but they died of asphyxiation.

Maybe in the Sherman case something was stolen, just not known at this time?

www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/dna-profile-florida-murder-suspect-1.3535947



Apr 14, 2016 - David Pichosky and Rochelle Wise were found asphyxiated and bound in January 2013 inside their Florida home. ... David Pichosky and Rochelle Wise were found asphyxiated and bound in January 2013 inside their winter home in Hallandale Beach, Fla

 

[Elley Mae]

Doesn't match the RE listing. Probably the neighbours in the background.

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It appears to be dirt in between the ppl and the house, wonder if that’s the one being built.

 

[whitelilac]

I guess the most telling thing will be if there is any trauma to their bodies or if anything was taken. Wish they would give out that info.

I don't believe that the motive was robbery, if they were murdered. I still believe this was a well planned hit, the motive being any number of things to do with his business, inheritance, or revenge.

If anything is missing, I lean to this being staged as a robbery.....for now.

 

[zencompass]

I would imagine that the police have been consulting with their legal staff after the statement the children have made.

Whatever statement they release will be after consultation with the children. Lawyers will be involved in reviewing the police statement.

The police will need to do everything they can to avoid a costly lawsuit.

Not only were the Shermans international legacies with their philanthropy but dealing with a huge business.

More importantly, the children have deep pockets for lawyers and already they are upset with the release that the police are considering this a "murder-suicide".

They won't stand for an unbased remark that their father killed their mother. The statement of the theory of the police was released before the post mortem examinations were conducted.

The children's statement included a request for a "thorough, intensive and objective criminal investigation". That is what I believe is in the process of happening. This will be a lengthy investigation, in my opinion.

http://markets.businessinsider.com/...-Family-of-Barry-and-Honey-Sherman-1011611912

"We urge the Toronto Police Service to conduct a thorough, intensive and objective criminal investigation, and urge the media to refrain from further reporting as to the cause of these tragic deaths until the investigation is completed."

 

[Wyle_E_Coyote]

As for why the murder-suicide explanation is statistically a long shot, I defy you to find another case of murder-suicide where both parties were found hanging in a basement or even just where both parties were found hanging at all. It certainly seems like the posing in the basement was intended to shock and would not be something that Barry Sherman would have chosen if he did in fact wants to commit murder suicide. And that does not even get into the question of whether he could have dragged her down there and self or why he did not choose pipes or railings closer to where the actual murder took place.

Snipped for focus and BBM

http://www.kare11.com/mobile/article/news/search-warrants-detail-orono-murder-suicide/471988015

https://www.google.com/amp/www.bost...2015/02/brockton_woman_child_found_hanged?amp

http://articles.chicagotribune.com/...urder-suicide-ruled-medical-examiner-s-office


Suicide rates highest among elderly males.
https://newsletter.samhsa.gov/2016/02/02/preventing-suicide-among-seniors/

At that level of wealth, there is very deliberate and extensive estate planning. Their assets would be held in a trust, and changes are not as simple as an addendum to a will.

I'm sorry, I would like to believe in ninja assassins but my money is on a simple murder suicide.


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